


The Mock Medium

by baruffio



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Ryan is smol and full of rage, Shane Being an Asshole
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-11 12:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19927855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baruffio/pseuds/baruffio
Summary: Ryan wasn't always a believer. Shortly after believing in ghosts, he stopped believing in people.Shane never was a believer, but he didn't always advertise the fact.Highschool!Ryan hires college!Shane to bust some ghosts and would not recommend the experience. Almost ten years later and despite a whole lot of loathing, Ryan is still somehow inclined to include Shane on ghost stuff.A/N : The story is told from 3rd person-Ryan's POV in temporal trilogies (pre-Shane, 1st Shane encounters, and working at Buzzfeed). There's a little time gap between the first two sections and a substantial time gap between the 2nd and 3rd.





	1. Hauntings, Remorse, and It Can Always Get Worse

Ryan yelped and took a running leap onto his bed, yanking the sheets up to his nose. His feet, still chilled from the bathroom tile, sent sharp shivers running up his legs.

The footsteps down the hall stopped, and Ryan couldn't breathe. Weight sank down on his chest, gradually getting heavier and heavier, the pressure building and growing and--

The wind shrieked through the window and Ryan tried to scream, but he didn't have enough air. He thrashed and sweated, but he couldn't move a muscle. His vision was getting fuzzy.

_Ryan, Ryan, Ryan._

Ricky growled in the hallway, and Ryan could breathe again. He immediately became a sniveling ball of terrified relief. Ricky trotted in and clambered up the side of the bed.

"Good boy," Ryan panted as Ricky nosed at his elbow. "Good boy."

It took several long minutes for Ryan to fully recapture his breath. He flopped over and stared at the blinking red digits of his alarm clock.

"It's almost four," Ryan informed Ricky. He snuggled up under his chin. "Crap." He had to get up in a couple of hours for school.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

"Mr. Madej?" Ryan asked. The elderly man glared back at him and Ryan wavered in indecision until he heard his name from over his shoulder.

"Ryan, over here!" The speaker was a young man with a weird face. Not ugly, but with long eyes and a smile sloping from ear to ear. He beckoned Ryan over with a hand.

"Mr. Madej?" Ryan repeated skeptically.

"Guilty as charged."

Ryan stared at Madej. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-one, you ageist berk. What, you think you have to have one foot in the grave in order to _commune with spirits_?"

Ryan scowled at the mockery laden in those last words. When he had originally emailed to schedule an appointment, Mr. Madej had assured him that he could eradicate any spiritual malevolence. Ryan had immediately emailed back that he was looking for a peaceful resolution; he wasn't interested in garnering bad mojo in the spirit world. Mr. Madej had simply responded with a date, a location, and a recommendation that he leave the ghoulish details to an expert. Ryan had eight email drafts ranging from snarky to ornery. However, he never actually had responded.

"I think it's hella strange to meet a ghostbuster in Chipotle is what I think."

Mr. Madej crinkled a brief smile that electrified his eyes with mirth. "In my line of business, offices are susceptible target points. Even the best defences can be worn down. Ideally, one does not project a target."

Ryan stared at his hands. "And how does one stop being a target?" When he didn't get an immediate reply, he looked up to see Mr. Madej gnashing his teeth on a mouthful of burrito. "Ew, man, come on."

Mr. Madej slurped down soda and took a huge swallow that jutted his Adam's apple forward. "It depends who's affected and how. Possession and hauntings are very different. Possession harms the vessel, makes it susceptible to future possessions. Hauntings will only ever affect the environment, causing physical detriment but leaving behind no openings."

Mr. Madej practically unhinged his jaw and gnoshed another mouthful of burrito. Ryan stared in disgusted disbelief before shaking his head and looking away.

"I've a haunting," he told Mr. Madej's cup.

"Obviously," Mr. Madej said obnoxiously, globs of burrito chunks splattering onto the table. "I'm just waiting for you to realize you're hiring me."

Ryan dug his toes into the tips of his Jordans. "How much?"

Mr. Madej took another slurp of his drink and locked his eyes coolly with Ryan's. "Three hundred an hour."

"Okay," Ryan breathed. "I can do that."

Mr. Madej brandished a roll of paper at him. "Here's the contract. Read it over, ask your questions, and we'll plan the first session."

Ryan unfurled the paper. Blocky, typewritten letters ran from margin to margin for almost two page lengths. He squinted to make out the top line.

"You don't have to read it here and now," Mr. Madej said. "You know how to reach me." He jammed the remaining hunk of burrito into his mawl, rubbed crumbs off his hands, grabbed his cup, and gave Ryan a nod, all while standing up. Ryan craned his head up to look at Mr. Madej as he sauntered out of Chipotle.

"Well that was weird," Ryan huffed. He clutched the contract until he was ready to press to his feet and return home. He really didn't want to go back to his room, but there was no way he was signing the contract without reading it and there was no way he was reading it without his glasses.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

Ryan freezes. Rage throbs icyhot through his body and it's all he can do to hold the pizza boxes steady in his shaking hands.

"Oi," Ryan says, which is a way watered down version of what he really wants to say. "What are you doing here?" Steven gives him a side eye and readjusts his grip on the pack of La Croix.

"Dude," Steven says. "That's Shane."

Shane beams back at them both. "The interns have lunch!" he calls, and the Buzzfeed office undulate with cheering staff surging forward.

Ryan drops the pizza boxes on the table and retreats before he can be swept under the tide of salivating people.

Free from the chaos of lunch, Ryan turns to glare some more at Shane only to discover him at his elbow, smiling and effervescent as if he weren't the worst human being Ryan had ever met.

"Thanks, boys," Shane says with a hand around both interns' shoulders. "Come eat with us."

"Thanks!" Steven chirps like a trusting fool, and Shane drops his hands.

"You don't know who the fuck I am," Ryan says, and his vitriol is somewhat damped by his incredulity.

"Of course I do," Shane beams back, and Ryan is all sorts of ready to punch him in the face again. "I hired you. You were my pick."

"I got my way in on merit!" Ryan snarls.

"Of course you did," Shane agrees. "But at a certain point of a successful company, candidates all look pretty good."

"Oh, am I supposed to be grateful?" Ryan has so much hate he feels it like bile rising up from his stomach.

"You're supposed to feel even," Shane says. "I picked you."

"That's not getting even," Ryan glowers. His eyeballs are starting to hurt from the intensity of glaring up. "What the hell? Shut the fuck up."

Shane's smile comes back full wattage, but his eyes are steely. "No, shortstop, you shut the fuck up. You were played, and if you can't own that and work here, your internship is going to be short lived. I'm not at your beck and call. I owe you nothing."

Ryan is not emotionally equipped to handle his reaction. He kicks Shane in the shin, spins off towards the bathroom, and pauses to throw a sarcastic "Oops, sorry," over his shoulder.

By the time he reaches the bathroom, he decides to change his course. He wanders through the sets: simple backdrops brought to life by very deliberate light set-ups. He catalogues the lights in a painstaking attempt to calm down, and although it works to some extent, he is drained by the time he meanders into a recording studio and collapses into a chair.

Ryan feels things in a big way. He hadn't realized he had this much emotion still wrapped up in the events from six years ago.

He swings side to side in the chair and grabs for a grounding fistful of hair, but his hair is too short. Ryan rests his face on his palms and mutters a broken expletive.

He is soooooo fired.


	2. Rigmarole, Contracts, and Friends with Ink Faces

"Let's go!" Ryan hollered, swinging the noll and clanging the bell has hard as he could. "Wakey, wakey, ghosts and ghouls!"

Dan was breathless from cackling. "Will them into existence then, Bergara."

Ryan jumped down from the display and did an exaggerated searching motion. "Yooohooo!"

"Maybe you're coming on too strong-"

"Spirits and gentleghouls, I invite you to-"

"-or not strong enough!"

"-to hop in bed with me. I wanna take you home to meet the parents. Not my parents, they're not down for ghost town. To meet Dan's parents!"

Dan wheezed and clutched at his sides. "That's a hard pass."

"You're right. I gotta be more coy." Ryan struck a disjointed pose.

Dan sputtered into another fit of laughter.

It's a weekend before Halloween and they're touring a haunted house with Dan's sister and Ryan's cousin. They're going to spend the night camping in the gardenhouse and Ryan's ready for the slumber party vibes, no homo.

He taunted ghouls in the attic and demons in the basement; he mocked and mimicked the wealthy spirits and theorized how the servant ghosts got their revenge; he and Dan were having a blast.

They laughed about the tree shadows that tremble across the floor of the garden house and the shrieks of the wind against the windowpanes. They laughed themselves asleep. And when Ryan felt a hand cup his cheek, he laughed himself awake at Dan's prank. But there was no one there.

He stopped. He wouldn't laugh so freely again for a long time.

  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

_In signing the below document, I ascribe to the following truths:_

  1. _I have sought out the services of one Shane Alexander Madej to alleviate the effects of a possession and/or haunting;_
  2. _I understand that a perceived possession and/or haunting may have prolonged psychological effects for an indeterminate amount of time;_
  3. _I understand that a perceived possession and/or haunting mave have prolonged physical manifestations in such cases as impairments to corps or architecture to include scratches, lacerations, migraines, pest infestations, decay of structural integrity, and inconsistencies with plumbing or electrical service;_
  4. _I have not been forced or otherwise manipulated into accepting the services of aforementioned Shane Alexander Madej;_
  5. _In cases variable to haunting, I permit contracted services to access the haunted facility. I understand that I may be instructed to change premises for a brief period of time;_
  6. _In cases variable to possession, I permit contracted services to continuously contact me through e-mail and/or texting until the termination of contract;_
  7. _I, the below signed, have the ability to cancel the contract at any point in time;_
  8. _At time of cancellation, payment and/or a payment plan must be established for any and all services rendered leading up to the cancellation of contract;_
  9. _The terms of this contract are to be understood literally in a court of law._



There's a spot next to each statement for Ryan's initials, and underneath the ninth bullet point were two lines for his printed name and signature.

_**Terms of Contract** _

_I, ______________________________, hire Shane Alexander Madej for his services in removing a concern of a supernatural extent. On this date, _____________ ___ ________, I agree to the fee of $300.00 / hour._

**_I_ _believe_ ** _**myself to be the subject of a** ______._

_□ possession □ haunting □ both □ unknown_

_**My spiritual upbringing is** __________________. _

_□ Agnostic_  
_□ Atheist_  
_□ Buddhist_  
_□ Christian - Catholic_  
_□ Christian - Protestant (denomination: ______)_  
_□ Hindu_  
_□ Muslim_  
_□ Wiccan_  
_□ Other (Specify: ____________________________)_

 ** _Tell me about your experience with phenomena:_**  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________._

 _ **This contract is encompassing** ______________. _  
_□ one session (as an advisory)_  
_□ multiple sessions (as an active agent)_

There's another place for signatures. Ryan reads through the contract twice, jotting notes on a legal pad, before composing his e-mail.

Mr. Madej,  
Do you get sued a lot? Some of those numbers seem unnecessary.  
I'm agreeing to your contract, but parts are going to be kind of hard. My house is haunted, and my whole family can't exactly relocate if you tell us to. I'm also not telling my parents about the haunting because it's 100% my fault.  
I'm ready when you are.  
Ryan

Clicking send felt like a prayer.

  
\----------------------------‐---

  
"So you kicked one of the producers," Steven says without prelude. "Doesn't seem like the most thought-through career strategy."

"I know," Ryan means, glaring crossly at the broken printer he's supposed to be fixing. "But he's a real jerk."

"You know him from outside of Buzzfeed?" Steven nudges Ryan's shoulder, and Ryan promptly drops the printer cartridge on his nice jeans.

Ryan breathes deeply and struggles to not then and there morph into a fountain of oh-so-salty tears.

"Crap," Steven says. He grabs the cartridge and dabs at the stripe of ink across Ryan's thigh. "Shit, sorry Ryan."

"Yeah, I know him from before BuzzFeed," Ryan says darkly. "He's a manipulative asshole and I hate him."

"Sounds like he manipulated you," Steven says. He goes to run a hand through his hair and hesitates too late; a wide strip of ink rides his brow and disappears into his hair. "Shit!"

Ryan laughs at him before grabbing a handful of tissues. He licks the tissue and starts rubbing Steven's forehead. "Yeah. Teenagers are easy to manipulate though."

"Ryan?" Steven says suddenly, and his tone has completely flipped to something dark. "He didn't...take advantage...of you, did he?"

"That's what I'm saying," Ryan says. "That's what he does!"

"Report him!" Steven says forcefully. "That's not okay! And who knows how many more he'll harass if you don't take a stand? God, I can't believe I liked him! That's sick!"

Ryan freezes, looking down on Steve in abject confusion. "I mean, thanks for the support, but it's a little overboard. He--"

"Sexually assaulting a minor--"

"Woah, woah, woah!" Ryan shouts, turning pink. "No! That did not happen. He scammed me really bad. Really well? He made twelve hundred off of me being naive."

Steven is breathing heavily but coming down from his raging justice. "Still not acceptable," he huffs. "You want me to kick him too?"

"I mean, if you're offering," Ryan grins. He plucks Steven on the forehead. "This mark is definitely permanent, btdubs."

Steven rolls his eyes, and Ryan rolls his eyes back.

**Author's Note:**

> I've got two other fics that I don't want to abandon, so this won't be updated for a hot minute. There's definitely more planned!


End file.
